Readability allows you to read it later and more

Have you ever been trying to view a website to read a couple of articles, but your webpage gets so bogged down while trying to load all the extra images and graphics? It’s a pain in the rear most of the time, and while some websites look absolutely stunning, it just gets annoying that the webpage is taking forever to load. It doesn’t matter whether it’s on your mobile device, tablet, or even your desktop, those graphics can take forever to load.

What Readability has to offer

Well awhile back Apple implemented a feature for Safari by the name of Reader. This basically strips any webpage that you’re trying to load, down it’s barebones. The minimum, meaning that you only ever see the content. Yes there are still links available to click and such, but you don’t have to worry about those pesky ads popping up, or that graphic at the top of the page to load before you can scroll down. Well, there’s been so much of a clamoring for this feature, that the last few beta versions of Chrome for mobile have this functionality built right in.

Well what about those who want to be able to see just the barebones on their desktop? Enter Readability. Readability is a Chrome extension that does exactly what Reader does for Safari, and what the Chrome devs for the mobile app have added to the betas. Strips those sites down to the barebones so you can just get the content and nothing else.

Installation of Readability is simple and easy. You can either install the bookmarklets found here, or you can head on over to the Chrome Web Store and add the Readability extension to Chrome. Once installed, just tap the icon or bookmarklet and watch the magic happen.

Before

After

Now Readability does more than just stripping down web pages for your viewing pleasure. Readability also acts as a Read It Later client, and with mobile apps for iOS and Android, you can save something on the go, sit down at your computer, log in, and you can read that long article when you’re more comfortable. I find myself using it Read It Later services throughout the day, then when I get home in the evenings, I’ll go through and if it’s something that I really want to read, I’ll read it, but if not, I’ll usually just trash it.

Also, there are various settings and such that you can find within the toolbar on the left hand side, after enabling Readability. This little settings panel allows you to change the font, text size, as well as, switching between a light or a dark theme. You can also view recommendations based off the article you are reading, as well as save it to your Reading List, after creating a Readability account,

You can also add tags to the articles that you save, that way, when you start queuing up more articles over time, you can simply look through those saved articles by tags instead of just scrolling through. This helps more if you want to save some articles via Readability and keep them for future reference.

What apps do you use for Read It Later services or to strip down those image laden websites? Let us know in the comments below.